Two U.S. military leaders stressed to lawmakers the growing presence and threat posed by China in both the Middle East and Africa.
China brokered an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore full diplomatic relations, which was announced last week.
The deal was the culmination of years of negotiating and fighting between the rival countries, though Beijing only became involved in these talks in the past several months.
U.S. Central Command leader Gen. Michael Kurilla described Beijing’s facilitation of the agreement as “concerning” during a Thursday hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“What is concerning on this is China’s penetration into the region,” he explained. “In the national instruments of power, they already have their economic in the region, their information, their military — with the increase in sales of at least 8% over the last 10 years in terms of their military sales — and now we’re seeing for the first time really their diplomatic.”
Nineteen of the 21 countries within CENTCOM’s area of responsibility have Belt and Road Initiative agreements with China, which are Beijing’s wide-reaching international infrastructure plan, he said.
“What we see with China, on the military side, is that they have a significant increase in bringing their equipment into the region and, therefore, military sales. And if there’s Chinese equipment, then we cannot integrate it with U.S. equipment,” Kurilla explained. “And so as we try and build the regional partnerships, and we’ve been there for the last 75 years, we try and build these regional partnerships. You want to be able to integrate with your partner and if there’s Chinese equipment there, we are not going to be able to integrate it.”
Kurilla reiterated in his written testimony to the committee that Beijing’s role in the deal “underscores the emergence of China’s diplomatic role in the region.”
He was joined by U.S. Africa Command leader Gen. Michael Langley in front of the Senate committee, who also spoke of an increasing Chinese threat in his command.
Langley said China hides its true aspirations behind “a thinly veiled front that is all for goodwill,” Langley told lawmakers, noting that Beijing is looking to secure military bases in Western African nations, which would “change the whole calculus.”
“It would change the whole calculus of the geostrategic global campaign plans of protecting the homeland,” he warned. “It would shorten — if they build any capacity on the west coast geostrategically [it] will put them at an advantage. Right now, we have the decisive advantage. We cannot let them have a base on the west coast because it would change the dynamics.”
China’s continued pursuit of stronger international relations is an aspect of Xi Jinping’s overarching goals for China, who recently issued a rare public rebuke of the United States.
“Western countries — led by the U.S. — have implemented all-round containment, encirclement, and suppression against us, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges to our country’s development,” he said during a speech last week at the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an arm of the Chinese government’s United Front Work Department.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, formerly China’s ambassador to the U.S., continued to push Xi’s frustrated tone toward the U.S. during a press briefing the next day, warning that “If the United States does not hit the brake but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation.”
